2005-2006

New Books on Online Gaming and Religious Environmentalism by WPI Faculty

Newly published books by WPI faculty members include the first authoritative overview of networking and online games, and the first comprehensive exploration of the rise of environmentalism within the religious community.

Gottlieb, the author or editor of 13 books and more than 50 articles on political philosophy, Marxism, feminism, the Holocaust, environmentalism, religious life, and disability, is receiving considerable attention for this look at what Oxford University Press calls "the remarkable and historically unprecedented rise of religious environmentalism." Publishers Weekly calls it a "hopeful, surprising book" that argues that "religious people and organizations are among the most committed, and most persuasive, environmental activists."

In the book, Gottlieb notes that many religions are reconnecting with their traditional respect and love for the Earth as one of God's creations, and are responding to the environmental crisis with "green" prayers and rituals, and environmental activism. He also explains how a spiritual perspective on environmental issues provides religious leaders a powerful and potentially world-changing platform from which to influence the direction of environmental policy and social change.

Networking and Online Games: Understanding and Engineering Multiplayer Internet Games, by Mark Claypool, associate professor of computer science and co-director of the Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD) major program, and Grenville Armitage, director of the Centre for Advance Internet Architectures and associate professor of telecommunications engineering at Swinburne University of Technology in England, and Philip Branch, senior lecturer at the Centre for Advance Internet Architectures (April 2006 U.K., June 2006 U.S.; John Wiley & Sons)

Recognizing the rapid growth in popularity of online, multiplayer games, this book looks exhaustively at both the impact of online games on networks and at the influence of network capabilities and limitations on the design of network games. The book is billed as an essential resource for game developers and engineers and technicians at Internet Service Providers. It is also intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in electrical engineering, computer science, and multimedia engineering—including students in WPI's newly established Interactive Media and Game Development major, which bridges the technical and the artistic aspects of interactive media, as well as WPI's Computer Science and Humanities and Arts Departments.

The book, the first of its kind in this emerging and important area of networking, uses examples of real multiplayer games to illustrate the principals of modern communications systems and the traffic patterns that such games impose on them, while also exploring how the performance of the networks affects the experience of game players, knowledge that can help designers create more engaging and effective online games.